Complete Paulson Q1 Portfolio Update: Major Additions To Gold Exposure, New Casino Stakes, But What About CDS And Gamma?

Paulson & Co's March 31 13F has been released. The fund is increasingly playing the barbell strategy, adding materially to both financial and gold stakes (both new and existing) across the board. While there were no new additions in the list of top 10 names, Paulson did add to some key names: the fund upped its stake in Bank of America by 16.8 million shares, bringing total value in BofA to $3 billion at 3/31 (combined with selling 3 million BAC Warrants); Paulson also has continued to increase its stakes in various gold producers, including Anglogold and Kinross. Other names added to included XTO, Hartford Financial, CBRE, First Horizon, and Macerich. The firm established new positions in MGM (40 million share), Apache (3.4 million), Mylan (11.4 million), Family Dollar (6 million), Devon Energy (3.3 million), Novell (25 million), Novagold (20 million), Supermedia (2.6 million), Dex One (3.7 million), Smith International (2 million), Boyd Gaming (4 million), Randgold (0.5 million), Iamgold (2.7 million), Beazer (5 million), Barrick Gold (0.4 million), and First Midwest (0.4 million). In short, Paulson added 4 new gold exposures in addition to its massive $3.4 billion stake in GLD, Anglogold ($1.7 billion), Kinross ($567 million), and Gold Fields ($297 million). Stakes eliminated completely consist primarily of various M&A arb deals that closed: Burlington Northern, Dr Pepper, Chattem, IMS Health, Encore Acquisition, Fifth Third, Kraft, Liberty Media, New York Community Trust, Pepsi Bottling and Pepsi Americas, Philip Morris, Sun Micro and Valley National. Of Paulson's $21 billion in total notional holdings at March 31, 30% were held in names directly related to gold extraction, production or gold ETFs.

That has to be it. Long term, the home buyer demographic is getting put on long term neutral do to their defaults. (both default by necessity and default by choice) Boomer retirement is also a drag. Can't see where demand will come from... I've also heard of some Homies shopping around the globe for $$$.

And I'm sure he has at least his stuff audited himself. Perhaps the GLD promoters needed a celebrity investor to sell the GLD fraud to the gullible public ala the Goldman-Buffett unholy alliance. I'm sure there must be hidden kicker (like, say, interest payable in Gold) to attract Paulson to "invest" in this shitpile.

A GLD vs. physical position provides insight into the investor. Anyone buying GLD values liquidity, indicating the intention to speculate on short-term trends, while discounting the possibility of major dislocation. Buyers of physical form a totally separate market, one willing to sacrifice liquidity, take on acquisition and storage costs, and assume risk of possession in anticipation of major dislocation. We can therefore know Paulson believes in the system; if you do too, then emulating his actions is probably a good move.

We've never had a major hedge fund manager go from hero to goat. Some have had a few good years, then frittered away the gains until they closed shop. Perhaps we are due for one to remind all that, in large part, trading success has a very large element of luck. Yes, there's research, and discipline, and money management, but if the markets have taught us anything in the last few years it is that research and logic can, at times, be of absolutely no value whatsoever.

Another major HF manager, though I cannot recall which one at the moment, once said that eventually the markets discredit everybody. Paulson, when he still had Pellegrini with him, came out of nowhere to become---as ZH demonstrates here---the prime focus among the HF community. David Tepper beat Paulson's record for one year take home, but he has slipped beneath the headlines again, putting the bright lights back on Paulson.

40% of this list is in major banks and financials. That is a rather large bet, even relative to S&P weighting. Paulson has more faith in Bernanke and Geithner than most people do in their chosen god. For that brief moment in time on 6 May, what was this portfolio "worth"? If the market bid disappears again, how likely is it that Paulson can escape from $3 billion of BAC, $2 billion of C, $1.5 billion of STI and COF, a half billion of WFC, etc.?

Could he be the one that goes out as spectacularly as he came on the scene?

A large number of folks, HF's and regular non-value-added funds, have bet the ranch on the continued ability of the Bernanke-Geithner-Obama Axis of Evil to continue to manipulate and rig the markets in favor of the least deserving members of our society....er...species. In the event democracy actually rears its ugly head again in that oligopoly known as the United States, that is going to be a very bad place to be positioned. It's a sure thing, until it's not.

By the way, cannot imagine why you got junked. Hope you post more, because I would like to hear more of your views, considering your background.

I can take a little junk. I've taken plenty of hits in my life so far.

As we can see from the Tories, populist uprising doesn't necessarily result in sane policies. It just results in a different set of crazies in power.

There's no way that the deficit can be closed by conventional means. There are also major political issues involved in dealing with the Federal debt (in regards to China).

I'm critical about the Tea Party because of the people that I've met through it. They seem to be unprincipled to the extreme. I can tolerate (and even like - sometimes very much) Ron Paul type people. But I dislike it when these politicians raise money from poor people and the young in promising them something better than what we already have.

They spend all their time focusing on these political issues instead of on improving their economic conditions.

The people that normally appear to be powerful or skilled at running the political system are actually turning out to be completely powerless in the face of these systemic issues. It may take generations to engender a superior society.

There are no quick fixes. There are no political solutions to this. There's no magic piece of legislation that will suddenly wave away all the evil in the world.

HF are re-locating to Geneva. Believe me from a personal experience; they are paying for homes, office space and entire buildings 20% above what they are worth. Geneva is and will for ever be a cosmic center of shadow, discrete and arcane forms of financial services. The other one is Zug.

FWIW, that 40mm shares of MGM looks very interesting to me...quick and simple beta between MGM stock and CDS during 3-6 months Q4 09-Q1 10 and you see 120x ish...With CDS trading at ~800bps, that's a DV01 around say $3300 / $10mm notional (again give or take)...so I suggest (ever so humbly) that Mr. Paulson has bought $1bn notional credit protection (short credit) [Math:- 40mm shares / 120x = 333,333. Then to get to that DV01 we need 100x$10mm or $1bn notional protection] - arb guys, ignore the crude math for now. So he buys 40mm MGM shares and Buys $1bn Credit protection to be 'approximately instantaneously empirically (lots of caveats) MtM hedged.

BUT...a quick optical at the charts of MGM CDS vs Stock and you see CDS got pretty rich (tight) relative to stocks during that quarter as all the craziness of reach-for-yield (and its own fundamentals played in) and so while he is 'hedged', he is looking to take advantage of the potential mispricing....

AND...even better, should MGM go tits-up - and we have to assume recovery is gonna be ugly, he gets paid say $700mm (30% recovery) on the CDS and loses say $480mm (or whatever he paid for it, which is likely less)...

SO..instead of being a fully bullish bet on MGM (he is huge long MGM stock and it will do the rounds on StockTwits tomorrow), he is actually hoping for a huge bearish ending [DEFAULT] and in the meantime, showing his huge Stock holding in MGM gets the momo boys and coat-tail hanger-onners to pull his arb into a nice PnL position in the meantime (coz technical buying pressure in stocks will outweigh any supply of protection in CDS)...

So you mean JP would indicate a long equity position only to be short higher in the stack (and grateful that short credit positions will likely not have to be reported for at least 2-3 years)? Or that he makes 15% in a reflation and 50% in a full collapse. Never happen. Just ask ACA.

He is betting on either LBO or M&A. Thats his thang; thats what he is specialized in and what the structure of his fund is [look it up, JP&A is a M&A fund]. He is going long not to deceive the market, but purely based on the belief MGM will be bought.

Could be, though it was a bases loaded homer in the bottom of the ninth with two outs and an 0-2 count in the 7th game of the World Series. Time will tell.

Long term, I'd bet on Tudor, Bacon, Kovner and Soros/Drunkenmiller, who have stood the test of time across all asset classes in both bull and bear markets, semi-fair and completely rigged. I had a lot of look-sees on one of these guys back when he only had $6 million under management. Unbelievably prescient, and even more disciplined. His success is not the least bit surprising.

Paulson isn't a one hit wonder. And me thinks everyone is giving too much credit to Pellegrini. It was Paulson's idea and Paulson decided to make the huge bet. Pellegrini did most of the analysis. So far, gold and financials have been a great call. I wouldn't be caught dead in any financials now, though (or ever for that matter). Nor a gold ETF.

Agreed about Paulson, but you're a bit off the mark about Pellegrini. The reality is that Paulson only had a general idea, a hunch, about that to do. Pelligrini not only had the analytical evidence, but he developed an innovative plan to essentially "create" the market they wanted.

You can certainly make the case of a limited track record versus Paulson, but Pellegrini has proved not to be a one-hit wonder, either. Far from it.

Somewhere between your eyeballs and your frontal cortex, you have suffered a rather catastrophic disconnect that has rendered your reading comprehension skills useless. Either that, or your glial cells (provides nutrition to your neurons) are starved, and you should consider sprinkling fish food on the top of your head.

The vast majority of editorials written on this website are accurate, insightful, and god-damn witty. If there are a few central themes to ZH they are: Wall Street is corrupt and manipulated; our politicians are liquifying the US dollar; US debt is on a collision course with its creditors; our politicians are self-serving charlatans who masquerade behind a thin veil of public service; and the metrics which measure the true health of the US economy are questionable, at best.

From what I read (and I read ZH every day) those are the main points of this site, and I think other regular readers would agree.

If you're trying to use ZH to trade the market from day to day, then you've haven't seen the ball since kickoff.

The unraveling of an economy is a process, not an event.

Petsmart has great deals on brine shrimp eggs this week. Do your glial cells a favor, and sprinkle them on your head. Your brain is starved and not functioning properly.

<<< The tea party people may just elect some kind of Mugabe-style lunatic that would do things like impose such confiscatory taxes. >>> Wow! Now here is a clueless comment if there ever was one. Obviously, you know nothing about the Tea Party movement. If anyone is going to impose higher taxes; VAT, 50% LTCG tax, etc. it will The Anointed One. That would be the Socialist ideologue now sitting in the Oval Office.

What I find interesting about the Paulson bets is the underlying assumption that the Federal Reserve has a LOT more ammunition to use to combat deflation.

Bennie Mae has gone to great lengths to ensure that deflation is NOT part of the equation-- and it seems like he would be willing to keep ZIRP for as long as entirely possible, inflation consequences be damned.

He might just well be right... but it would require the Fed to expand its balance sheet A LOT more than where it's at today. Crazier things have happened...

Interestingly enough, I've heard from some of my staffer contacts in DC that Bernanke made specific assurances to certain "voters" during his re-nomination "campaign", that he wouldn't to past the $3 trillion mark.

Of course, promises are made to be broken... when you are trying to save the finanical system from total collapse... again.

Paulson's GLD position is not a directional exposure but it is the currency the gold share class is denominated in. The changes in his GLD position do not reflect a change in bullishness or bearishness but rather the amount of hedges his hedge fund investors in the gold share class require to denomate their shares in gold ounces. If there is new money coming into the gold share class or there were redemptions then Paulson needs more or less GLD to hedge the share class.

The actual directional exposure is reflected in the gold miners he owns and any deriatives he may have (that we don't know of).

It's Prechter vs. Paulson. Who would you bet your money on? A perrrenial loser with 99.5% wrong calls on EVERYTHING for DECADES (with only retail suckers buying Elliot Wave nonsense keeping him from starving to death) or somebody who puts his money where his mouth is and wins?

It's kinda hard to evaluate long positions when short and derivative positions remain hidden.

Paulson is still trying to raise money, through major brokerages and private money finders. He has, what thirty or forty billion now? Quite a lot more than anyone else in the biz, and larger than all but a handful of financial corporations. Why is he soliciting more?